Fishing vessel MV Mark Counter 2, which was hijacked on Wednesday was yesterday recovered around 10 am by the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Coast Guard.

The boat’s crew of five was also found; all the men were unharmed.
According to a GDF press release, the vessel was recovered just off the foreshore at Number 19 village Corentyne with its fishing seines, catch, and engines all intact.

The crew, who were all packed into the boat used by the pirates and left at sea, drifted ashore and reported the matter to the Coast Guard at New Amsterdam.

The Coast Guard’s Raider Craft 16 (RC16) vessel was immediately dispatched and several vessels were stopped and searched along the coastland at points nearest to the incident.

The search had to be discontinued at 18:15 hs on Wednesday, but resumed yesterday morning with the owner and relatives of the crew members aboard the RC 16.

The release added that some men were seen in a clump of bushes on the foreshore in the vicinity of where the vessel was recovered but vanished as the Coast Guard vessel approached.

Coast Guard towed the recovered Mark Counter 2 to Rosignol and will continue to assist the police with the investigations into the incident, the release said.

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard denies allegations that it did not respond to a similar incident which occurred on November 16. It said that with regard to that incident of piracy, the Coast Guard had dispatched a search party within 15 minutes of the report being received. A second party was dispatched along the Number 19 area a few hours later. However there had been no sightings of the hijacked vessel or the vessel used by the pirates.

The release added that the allegations made against the Coast Guard “most likely arose in light of the observers’ lack of knowledge.” The release said too that the Coast Guard continues to “fight the scourge of piracy occurring along Guyana’s coastlands despite uninformed reports which suggest otherwise.”Also that the Coast Guard stands ready to support citizens in their bid to hunt down the perpetrators of piracy who are intent on “causing mayhem on Guyana’s waterways.”